1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a wiper blade mounted on a wiper device of a vehicle to wipe a glass surface, and more specifically, to a wiper blade with heating elements capable of optimally keeping a condition of the wiper blade in order to wipe a glass surface even during winter when the external temperature is low by automatically turning-on or turning-off the heating elements embedded in a wiper blade and a method for controlling a wiper blade.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in FIG. 1, a wiper device according to the related art includes a wiper arm 9 that rotates left and right by a motor (not shown) disposed in a vehicle and a wiper blade 1 mounted on the wiper arm 9 to move together. The wiper blade 1 includes a rubber strip 2 that wipes a glass surface while moving over the glass surface (not shown) closely.
The wiper blade 1 is coupled with the wiper arm 9 to rotate at a predetermined angle according to the driving of the motor. To this end, the wiper blade 1 according to the related art includes first link members 3 coupled with the wiper arm 9, a plurality of second link members 5 that are coupled with the first link members 3 to uniformly transfer the pressure of the wiper arm 9, and a plurality of third link members 7 that are coupled with the second link members 5 to connect the rubber strip 2.
In this configuration, the second link members 5 adjacent to the rubber strip 2 and the ends of the third link members 7 are provided with clips 5a and 7a, respectively, to couple the rubber strip 2 by being inserted into a rail groove formed in the rubber strip 2.
As described above, the wiper blade 1 according to the related art is formed to flexibly bend the rubber strip 2 along the glass surface of a vehicle by rotatably coupling the plurality of link members 3, 5, and 7 at a predetermined angle to each other.
However, the rubber strip 2 of the wiper blade contracts during winter when the temperature is low, such that it becomes rigidly hardened. Therefore, when the rubber strip 2 is not flexible, the rubber strip 2 does not completely adhere to the glass surface of a vehicle. In particular, both ends of the rubber strip 2 come off the glass surface, such that there is a problem in that the contact area with the glass surface becomes small, etc.
A wipe blade to optimally wipe the glass surface even during the winter when external temperature is low by embedding the heating elements in the wiper blade has been developed. However, the wiper blade with the heating elements according to the related art cannot appropriately control the heating elements and can waste power by supplying power to the heating elements for a longer time than needed, since a driver determines whether the generation of heat of the wiper blade is needed to supply power to the heating elements by inserting a power connection part connected to the heating elements into a cigarette outlet.